CMCH to install 45 solar-powered lights

The Coimbatore Medical College Hospital is making a move towards renewable energy. It will install as many as 45 solar-powered streetlights on its premises. R. Doraiswamy, Coimbatore (South) MLA, under whose constituency the hospital comes, has come forward to bear the entire project cost of Rs. 20 lakh from his MLA Local Area Development Fund.

Hospital sources told The Hindu here on Wednesday that the first solar streetlight was installed as a pilot project near the Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (CEmONC) centre, which rendered emergency obstetric and neonatal care. Each solar light costs around Rs. 43,000. They would be fitted with LED lights. This was the first time the CMCH was installing solar streetlights. Till now, it used solar power only for heating water.

The lights would be stand-alone systems with each unit having a separate power supply. They can be used round-the-clock. The installation of the streetlights was likely to commence in September and would be completed by month-end.

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The hospital had also sought the MLA’s financial support to purchase two advanced generators of 250 kVA capacity each. Costing totally around Rs. 40 lakh, these generators would automatically start if the power supply was cut. Right now, the hospital experienced darkness during the time it took for the generator sets to start after the power supply was disrupted, sources said.

The CMCH, which was the tertiary referral hospital for the region and treated patients from several Western districts and even from border districts of Kerala, witnessed anywhere near 7,000 outpatients every day besides 1,200 in-patients.